“Mr Dawkins keeps a dirty ship, it seems,” quoth Murch. “But you and I will soon alter that, Mr Pomfrett.”
The owners’ agent fixed his blue eyes on the speaker. His glance had lost its look of mild and innocent enquiry of late; it was hard, even menacing, the eyelids drawn obliquely at their outer corners. Mr Pomfrett was beginning to know his own mind, you see.
“I stop not to enquire how you came hither,” continued Murch, returning look for look. “I make it a rule to deal with a situation as I find it; and I may tell you, we have no time at present to be swapping stories of adventure. They will serve for our amusement when we are fairly on the high seas, with Mr Dawkins hull-down on the lee. It’s with Dawkins we are first concerned, Mr Pomfrett—dead or alive, you know, dead or alive,” says Murch, with a peculiar intonation.
“Then it was your boat paid us a visit by night, under Cape Gracias?” said Pomfrett.
“Did you take us for ghosts, sir? Well, I may tell you, I have a singular belief that the grave would not hold me—no, nor the deep sea—had I a duty left undone. I have the highest opinion of your integrity, Mr Pomfrett; as a guardian of youth, your qualifications are, I doubt not, superior to my own; but even that belief cannot absolve me from my trust to a dead friend; nor can a similar confidence pretermit the obligations of my ward.”
He glanced sternly at Morgan Leroux, who was seated in her usual attitude, chin on hand, regarding him composedly, though she had gone, I thought, a little pale.
“But I accuse no one of such ingratitude,” Murch went on, “for, had you desired to escape me indeed, you would surely not have left two or three plundered ships to mark your way, broad as sign-posts, when it were so easy to scuttle them. No, no. I prefer to believe that you did but anticipate my plans a little, and to save time, the while I was engaged in Porto-Bello, you went to find Mr Dawkins for me. I thank you. You have found him. And so have I—in Cartagena. Of course, all the inhabitants had taken to the woods, with their possessions; it is singular how a man of Dawkins’s experience will never learn to close the earths before he bolts the prey; but there it is, and I was able to save him the trouble of collecting their dues from them. I have a bag or two of diamonds aboard the Wheel of Fortune, Mr Pomfrett, as to which I should like your opinion.”
He paused, thrusting his lower jaw a little forward, so that the semicircular wrinkles curving from nostril to chin deepened; his narrow eyes roved from face to face with a sort of stealthy derision, highly disagreeable to his audience. The old beast of prey had tracked us leisurely across the trackless sea, kept his ship out of sight while we lay under Cape Gracias à Dios, where he spied upon us with boats, and waited until we had settled with Dawkins for peace or war, as we were bound to settle soon or late. Had we fought with Dawkins, both sides would have been weakened, to Mr Murch’s advantage; but, as we concluded a treaty together, Mr Murch bided his time a little longer, until we were separated from Dawkins. Then, having us safely on the beach, Murch followed Dawkins up the River Coco and swept up the plunder of Cartagena while Dawkins did the fighting. Evidently, it were better to have Murch on our side than against us.
“Is Dawkins returning?” Pomfrett asked, curtly.
“I reckon Mr Dawkins is on the road,” answered Murch. “That is, unless the Spaniards have cut off his retreat, which they might have done, for Dawkins mislaid his boats. It was a pity they should be lost, so I even brought them down-stream myself; you can’t have too many boats, as a general rule.”